Diversity Worksheet The Gender Gap of Technology Created for Diversity Awareness: Female Computer Technicians

In today’s day and age Information Technology (IT) is used on a daily basis. Information

Technology includes: internet development, hardware repair, software design, and many more areas.

When looking at the technological industry one can see a lack of diversity in some areas. One of these

areas is the gender gap between men and woman. In a recent article in the San Francisco Chronicle

discussing this gap it is stated that women “comprise less than 20 percent of the nation's computer

science research graduates.” This paper will focus on the issues behind the gap between men and

woman in the technological field and why diversity is important.

Most of the women surveyed suggested that they did not feel their families came first in the IT

field. They sometimes felt like the IT field was overpowering because they were required to work long

hours. It was also found that once completing an educational program in IT, women found it harder to

find positions in the field that competed with men in the same capacity. This study also concluded that

child care hindered the decision making process of women entering and staying in the IT field. The issues

of flexible working hours, ability to get an IT job, and childcare show trends that need to be addressed

for women to decrease the gap between the genders.